Sound evidence for biodiversity monitoring: Bioacoustics and artificial intelligence facilitate ecological studies of animal populations

With 28% of all assessed plant and animal species now at risk of extinction, new noninvasive and efficient tools to monitor populations are urgently needed. For animal populations, studying their vocalizations through automated monitoring and machine learning offers one such solution (1). Machine-learning techniques have the potential to handle huge amounts of data and uncover sound patterns, allowing for faster, cheaper, and better ecological studies based on acoustics. However, challenges remain in using this technology to monitor animal populations.